Palpitations...Precipitations. June 16th

 

Still laden with impressions of the vigil held the night before at the Alewite religious center (Cemevi) in a suburb of Ankara, where we met dozens of members of the close-knit community of very friendly and generous people and had engaging conversations late into the night which felt like a mutual therapy in the unrelenting trauma of the past two weeks, we had to get ready for the funeral procession that would—

[pause: I had to take a 15 min break at the sounds of gas bombs coming close and a crowd rushing by on the street—]

So, on the morning of June 16, today, we had to start getting ready for the funeral procession that would meet downtown, at Kizilay, at noon. 15 minutes before leaving home I read on twitter that police had intercepted the group and started throwing gas bombs, and that the procession bearing the body that started from Batikent towards Kizilay was also stopped by the police, who started an ID check. Given the particularly relentless attack on city centers, the worst night at Taksim a day before, I could see the meeting in Kizilay would be out of the question. I wondered for a minute about the fate of the banner that still hung in Güvenpark in Kizilay, placed there by the mayor, to inform the “precious Turkish police” that “Ankara is proud of you.” For what? No reason stated. Just proud, at this particular moment, though no date is indicated on it. The logic of absence and the stealing of the transitive object is how the logic of this particular vein of fascism invariably operates: when the object of the statement is stolen it is to be assumed that the omnipotent One is the explanation behind everything. Ankara is proud of the cops for reasons too ubiquitous to need explanation. “We are proud of you” for reasons immemorial. Like God. Like all that is dictated by God, no need for the author to specify what. And that is precisely how the eclipse of mind operates in every statement by the zealots of “mild” Islam who rule Turkey—if it sounds oxymoronic it’s only because oxymorons prove very effective in the way the US Empire functions.

So having put on my shoes and ready at the door, without knowing where exactly to go, I start heading towards Kizilay. Lucky to run into prospective crew members just before reaching a main junction where the police barricade is in the making. They convince me we will be taken into custody if we push our way through the barricade. Meanwhile we receive information on the internet that the procession is rescheduled to take place in Batikent. Ethem’s family doing their best to avoid any confrontation with police violence on such a day, even retreating from the plan to revisit the site where Ethem was shot.

So we take a huge detour to the 3^rd stop of the subway to catch the suburban train to Batikent. As we get off at the final station, hundreds are starting to gather for the procession towards the Alewite Center. By the time we start moving we are in the thousands, and as we catch a glimpse of the Cemevi behind a hill, we have become a groundswell. We descend over the landscape surrounding the Center, a chanting, singing crowd of some 8 thousand, maybe more. 

We take photos, and remind ourselves that this scenery is all that is left to Ethem’s mother for consolation. This scenery of which we are part, I find myself hoping it has the intensity and enough significance to give his mother some consolation over the years. I can’t help but feel our chants are lacking in strength, so much unavoidable repetition of political jargon: martyrs of the revolution are immortal. Yes but… I can’t help but feel that our words feebly lack the spark of consolation a mother will need. Then I remind my friends in the company of the picture of Ethem’s wife and little daughter which I saw on twitter just before leaving home. Had no idea he was married. Who will console her, and her? What procession? And when the procession disperses, what will be left to all his loved ones?

We spend some time at the Cemevi before starting back to see off the convoy of cars that will take his body to his native Corum, a city in Central Anatolia. We hear news of his brother being hassled by police in the downtown. The governor and mayor of Ankara cooperating to leave no moment of peace for a family that has lost their son to police violence. Meanwhile, the cop who fired into the crowd three times and finally targeted Ethem on June 2, as the video makes clear, and killed him with a real, not rubber bullet, as the autopsy has made clear—this cop is identified by the serial number on his helmet, yet the so-called Security Forces are still incommunicado, not delivering the name to prosecution. Indeed, the latest news is that the cop who murdered Ethem has been shifted to a different slot in the Security. The open secret is as yet unrevealed as Ethem’s body is laid in the earth.

One looks for the tiniest sparks of consolation to repair one’s own tattering narrative consistency, a selfish need for self-preservation, mostly, but coupled with the need for a soothing idea that there is a place for the lost one, that he did not simply disappear. At the vigil the night before, a speaker had told us we shall see Ethem off to the sun. Not into the earth, but upwards towards the sun. This seed sawn by the voice around a bonfire stayed with me during my sleep the night before. Now I hear it once more on the microphone and feel myself adapting to it. Has Ethem not already sparked so much determination within us not to let the struggle down? Has he not sparked so many new friendships on our processions to the Alewite Center? By leading us to the very open and friendly people of the Alewite community has he not hinted at a major set of problems awaiting us in days to come: the artificial divide which the government, particularly the PM is trying to breach between the Sunni and Alewite parts of the population—a highly irrelevant division except among his own perverse, orthodox clan? By sawing the seeds of closer ties between us, it was as if Ethem was preparing us towards yet worse atrocities that the government will very possibly try to incite in days ahead, given, particularly his zeal for intervening into the war in Syria, where he adopts a Sunni sectarian line against the Shiite majority of Assad supporters.

As the convoy was headed out of Ankara our little group had to deliberate as to how to return to downtown since there were rumors that the mayor shut down the subway again, as he does every night at 9, to cause the severest predicament to anyone connected with the protests, but inevitable to ordinary commuters as well. It turned out he only cancelled the last stop, but we could still use the subway to reach the one before last stop to downtown. When we reached there I said goodbye to the company, convincing them and myself that I would be entirely safe heading towards Kugulupark, the Swan Park, the convention place of protestors in Ankara, a miniature Gezi.

It was hardly 5 minutes after I left them that I saw singular protestors running towards me with bloodshot eyes. As I tried to offer them the talcid-solution which is omnipresent in our bagpacks, larger groups began running towards us and urging us to rush! They were being chased by the police. We were diverted away from the main boulevard, and crossing an old massive retail center I found myself on a large boulevard [turns out to be Aksu Cad., Sihhiye]

http://goo.gl/maps/WAMv8

As I was trying to figure which way to walk, I noticed one of the black vehicles used in police attack. This time, a cop was sitting on top o fit with a rifle in hand, firing randomly unto the sidewalk. It is hard to make sense of such scenes when one is exposed to them without warning. One’s immediate, inadvertent feeling is, “Am I in a crime movie?” and then, “since I’m not the guilty party I’m just a bystander, like a cinema viewer.” Shaking off the first freeze-frame astonishment I took a few more steps when a crowd of protestors rushed towards me, chased by scores of armed policemen running wild, and randomly shooting across the wide boulevard, unto the scattered bypedestrians standers and protestors on the sidewalks, indiscriminately. It was only then that the bystanders, including myself, dissolved from our freeze-frame, it dawning on us that the bullets and the gas canisters are meant for us all! First thing I know, I was running into the front yard of the retail center, trying to hide among the young pine trees, trying to decide against the rhythm of explosions if the trees were thick enough to protect me—and what would happen to them—or if the bullets would find me regardless. Somebody shouted warning us not to get squeezed in the yard, stay on the sidewalk. I saw a tall man two steps ahead of me carrying his 2-3 years old daughter, and still NOT running. He must have been keeping calm not to scare the child. I shouted at him to keep the child away from it all, not knowing myself which direction to suggest. 

We rush into the old retail center again. All shops closed. People shut the glass-pane gates. We see the police running around the center, and they can throw the gas canisters in through the large glass panes and that would be the end of us! Some people are talking about custody but all I care for is that we survive. My heart, beating at a scary speed and I have no control over it, not even with the prayers that I began to say aloud, inadvertently. Such a thing happens to me during the take off of an airplane, but this was incomparable in magnitude. My heartbeat a galloping horse. One tries to rationalize, logicalize as if by stitching a logical chain one could either gain some time, steal some time from the devil or spend one’s last moments doing something useful. It’s very strange to think of it afterwards, but I was trying to hang on to a chain of sanity, telling people to keep away from the wide glass-panes in case a gas canister broke in. Gas clouds surrounded the center and we had no exit scenario left. A woman said the cops followed singular persons, that a cop chased her, firing at her, and that she heard a man behind her scream for help. He is likely shot, she said, we should help him. But we couldn’t exit the building. 

After 5-10 minutes trapped in a glass box, I suggested we run out and jump in a taxi immediately. I suggested those who had gas masks should remove them so we can act like regular pedestrians who took shelter in the center to keep clear of the chase. Some men hailed the taxi from a taxi station right in front of the building on the boulevard. I got in one. The grandpa, granddaughter and brother who had agreed to the taxi plan did not join me. So I had to desert the scene by myself. The image of the cop on the black vehicle firing into traffic flow still vivid in my mind, I kept cowering inside the cab until we cleared that junction and swayed into another street.